It's going to be a wild ride. While (*most) people seem to like using Uber, headlines about how the unit economics don't work, how drivers can't make a living, how their working conditions aren't tenable keep popping up. How does Uber intend to address this?
In addition, I have questions about the service's ability to grow significant multipliers. It really feels like they've reached the majority of their markets three years ago, and have been tweaking things since. Why would you invest in this? Is there a clear value proposition for future growth?
OR how about the super questionable culture of the company and its executives and leadership? Those are such red flags by themselves... This is a horrid company with a horrible past that wouldn't die because of VC money.
I had a funny discussion about Uber with my uncle. I said I refuse to use it because they are a shitty company who are only cheap because they are using investor money to subsidise the rides on the plan of forcing the other players out of the market. His answer was that the barriers to entry on private car hire are so low that if Uber are doing this as their plan and I dislike them, I should use them as much as possible, as then they will collapse quicker.
Doing exactly what Uber wants isn't how you kill them. They're subsidizing the rides right now, but if everybody followed your uncle's advice, Uber would very quickly "win" the rideshare wars, establish their long-sought-after monopoly, and raise prices.
Better to support legislation that pushes the minimum wage up for rideshare and taxi drivers in top markets (see: Lyft $17/hr minimum in NYC). Faster death than trying to bleed Uber and Lyft dry through rides (which could take forever depending on investor taste for losses), and full self driving won't arrive anytime soon. Ride the populism wave.
So basically you're saying that you should use laws to send them out of business instead of basic economics?
Why wouldn't you pass a tax on search and social media companies that sets the minimum wage of engineers to 1 million dollars a year if you want to break up twitter, google, and facebook? That's logical equivalancy.
But not in one of the companies that appears to be well poised to win first entrance into the market. I think it's likely a dark horse will end up being first to market - but I think google will be there pretty soon after - uber's probably going to end up retrofitting any hardware they've developed with the winner's software as a way to scrounge back some of the R&D costs.
Funds, mostly. Investors who want a large stake of control and see intrinsic value in a TNC outside of the numbers. People who buy into California math. People buying a $42 lottery ticket. ML trading algorithms who have a tensor weighted heavily on "unicorn going public" that ends up equating to "Buy". Family or friends of employees that want to buy so they can "root for the company" (Yes this sounds ridiculous but this happened to a personal friend of mine and his mother still always asks why the stock is down 300% from when she bought it, and when she can expect for it to go up.)
There's a lot of reasons why people would buy Uber. But for anyone who is investing safely for retirement, I think it's easy to see that this is not an investable company at the moment.
Full self-driving cars will be unproven/limited to certain very specific areas for a while. And Uber will have to deal with the liability from accidents, too, plus the media storms (and they have enough of those already).
Is not just Uber, it's LYFT, neither can seem to make a profit. That kind of worries me because both are so convenient and so help people with limited income.
> Who buys stock at $45 and then the very next day sells it under that?
Data-based traders (including bots) who dont suffer from the sunk cost fallacy.
Also, who says the people selling were IPO buyers? Other people (including some that would not be impacted by insider windows) had stock before the IPO but had less ability to trade it when it wasn't public.
This can't be a surprise to anyone. Given Lyfts performance, after it's IPO, the fact that UBER is not profitable and really doesn't have a near term plan to be. The stock will continue to struggle.
They could follow the Amazon model to profits, get big enough to dominate the niche, but they at least need a profit engine, that would give them cash flow. It would let the company grow without having to continuously have to raise money and keep the stock price stable.
Look for the company to continuously raise money or to reduce service. None is good for the stock's future price.
Can Uber count on being the incumbent the way Amazon did? Amazon built up physical logistics infrastructure and a subscription service that serve as a barrier to entry for competitors. Uber's only real market foothold is a network of drivers, the turnover rate of which is high. To most users, ride shares are a commodity. Savvy user's already check available services prior to booking.
In addition, I have questions about the service's ability to grow significant multipliers. It really feels like they've reached the majority of their markets three years ago, and have been tweaking things since. Why would you invest in this? Is there a clear value proposition for future growth?